


You Should See Me in a Crown

by sympathyformephisto



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bisexual Female Character, Character Study, F/F, Futanari, Imperialism, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lesbian Azula (Avatar), Lesbian Character, Lesbian Character of Color, Marriage of Convenience, Multi, Open Marriage, Original Character(s), POV Azula (Avatar), POV Queer Character, Political Alliances, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Protective Azula (Avatar), Queer Character, Relationship of Convenience, Same-Sex Marriage, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Violence, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:28:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28033920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sympathyformephisto/pseuds/sympathyformephisto
Summary: Azula was once meant to be Fire Lord, to kill all her enemies, but since confronting her mother, she's been lost in the spirit wilds for months.However, after something inexplicable happens, she finds herself in another part of the world. Without any of the glory of her old title, she must forge political alliances and navigate an unfamiliar culture to regain her dignity and reforge herself.AU afterThe Search.
Relationships: Azula (Avatar)/Original Character
Kudos: 13





	1. Azula, Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Some shopkeeping:  
> 1\. Please heed any content warnings in the tags and take care of yourself.  
> 2\. This takes place after _The Search_ comic. Zuko, Azula, and the Gaang find Ursa, who chose to forget her past and assumed a new face via spirit magic, marrying an old flame and having a new daughter. As one does, Azula attempts to murder her mother. Zuko stops her. Azula runs into the spirit forest. That’s about it. I take some creative liberties, but the general plot is about the same. Every comic after that has not occurred.  
> 3\. I’m unsure of Azula’s precise age, but using the _Avatar_ Wiki as an excuse, I’m going to say she’s seventeen. Hey, she was in the spirit forest for a long time.  
> 4\. Azula is futa in this because, as of drafting this, it’s 2020 (as of starting out), and I need to live. Let’s simply say spending months in a spirit forest has interesting results.  
> 5\. Azula isn’t very nice, though I do try my best to show nuance. Her xenophobia and callousness toward her pro-genocide suggestion to Ozai in the finale aren’t meant to be good. This isn’t exactly a redemption story. Redemption is a complicated, messy thing, and I'm unsure if one novel can achieve it. My goal is to present her as close to her canon character as possible while showing some turmoil and development.  
> 6\. This is not an anti-Ursa story.  
> 7\. Normally, I don’t enjoy writing OCs, but there are quite a few original characters in this.  
> 8\. Yes, I've read _A Song of Ice and Fire_ , though I didn’t get far in _Game of Thrones_. I want to point out that any familiar story beats, character parallels (Dany, the general aesthetic of an imperial fire empire with dragons) or cultural similarities (the Dothraki) are less based on that and more based on the Mongol Empire. I might throw in an allusion here or there, though.  
> 9\. Geographical liberties have been taken. Imagine there is more land to the northeast of Ba Sing Se.  
> 10\. Special thanks to my beta-reader, a good friend.

Months upon months into solitude in the spirit woods, one might lose their mind. Azula, though, started to regain hers.

It was antithetical to the situation, but as she drank from the spring and ate berries that sometimes made her ill, she focused more on immediate material concerns over other matters. 

At night, only her own fires kept her warm. As ignoble as her situation was, as she rested her back against a gnarled tree and watched the rippling water, she felt . . . not peace. Nothing so insipid.

Numbness. Which was good, somewhat.

Not physically, no, she didn’t like anything that stole her senses from her. But she wasn’t resigned or jaded or emotional. This numbness was as close to herself as she felt before her usurped coronation, since Mai and Ty Lee betrayed her. It meant, eventually, she could form a plan. Failure and destitution weren’t options for someone like her.

In her old life—her mind had slipped to thinking of the past as long gone—she never wanted anything to take her out of the immediacy of the moment.

Now, she was grateful for the distraction, from . . .

Images swam before her. Illusions, perhaps the spirits she’d refused to believe in until she came here. A sea of faces, no, masks. White with slashes and circles of red. Fangs, scales. The dragons, the Dragon Emperor, her.

Her, standing there, perfect. Behind Azula, _her_.

The masks danced in circles, and the next moment Azula looked up, it was night, and insects glowed among the bark and leaves.

It wasn’t real. Silly dreams. Azula needed to focus, and most of all, she couldn’t lose her mind again. Couldn’t be weak, couldn’t let Zuko, weak, pathetic Zuko, get to her again.

She didn’t sleep or move the entire night. The fire in her kept her warm, but she needed to save her strength. She was beginning to lose weight; there was a time she could hold her entire body up with only her arms.

No matter how much she drank, her mouth was always dry, and her body ached from sleeping against hard bark or on the cold, damp ground.

When the canopy pinkened, she kept moving until she found a narrow way between the trees. She didn’t know where she was going, except that she felt as if she were chased. The wet odor of earth encompassed everything, and as much as it disgusted her before, the moss and decaying logs, she’d grown more accustomed to natural squalor.

A second pair of footsteps to her right, a flash of blue shoes under red robes.

Azula sighed in annoyance. She could no longer muster anger. “Mother, give me peace, for once.” She pressed her lips together. “Leave me alone before I make you regret it.”

“You are going the wrong way,” Mother said with that irritating, obviously false tinge of concern.

“When you’re lost this deep into the forest, I’m unsure there’s a ‘right’ way.”

“Are you hoping to die?”

The question pierced Azula.

This was why she wanted to kill Mother, as one burned a memento to kill a ghost that haunted them in the plays. But some believed burning money and food only fed it to spirits. The more Azula tried to run, tried to burn everything old, the more she saw old flames.

When she was with Zuko and the Avatar, she was reckless with her own wellbeing, like she’d never been before. But she’d never felt like she wanted to die, even with the indignities mounted upon her by being forced to be immobile and regarded as insane and lost.

She despised the pity the most, as rare as it was. Some of the nurses were sorry for her because she was so young, as if she couldn’t burn the entire building down and lead a patient revolt without barely any effort. She could’ve, but she didn’t.

Pity. Mother. _I’m sorry I didn’t love you enough._

Zuko reaching out, begging her to stay. Pitying his poor, lost sister, so incapable of receiving the love he had gotten from so many despite his many failures. Despite his hideous disrespect for their nation, which she gave everything. Poor Zuzu, with Mother and Uncle and Mai and Ty Lee and the Avatar and that water peasant.

Balefully, Azula said to Mother, “Go back to getting dolls for the daughter you really wanted. You never wanted me. I was imposed on you.”

“You’re deflecting. I was never happier than when I had you and your brother. I wanted you with every bone in my body.”

 _Liar._ A whisper above her in the leaves. _Liarliarliar._

She did everything, but she was unwanted. Unloved. That was good. It was simpler that way, no room for disappointment or betrayal. Not kind enough. Not feminine enough. Never ideal in ways that mattered to dear old Mother.

Here, there were no traitors.

(But no throne, either.)

Not ideal. Not enough. Not for Mother or Uncle, who wanted a girl who didn’t hurl rocks at the stupid turtleducks, who sat and giggled as she played with pretty dolls. Who was eternally docile and grateful. Who didn’t spend all her time learning military tactics and firebending.

(What should it matter? They’re nothing. And yet, they have everything.)

Mother interrupted her thoughts. “I wanted to spend time with you. I was unhappy because your father wouldn’t let me get in the way of your training. I only wanted you to be able to have a childhood, you and—”

“ _Your brother._ ” Azula ground her teeth. “You must always bring him up. You can never love me for my sake. It has to be because I’m your child like _he’s_ your child.”

To her left, another voice: “Keep going, Azula.”

“I must rest, Father.” Her words were sour on her tongue, and her scalp itched.

“Why?” he asked. She caught his severe profile out of the corner of her eye. “There is nothing here.”

Azula asked, “What is the right way?”

Father said sharply, “Whichever way you decide is right.”

“I can’t go on.” To her relief, she didn’t feel shame admitting it. Shame was a waste of time.

It was a mere fact. She was too weak, after all. Too broken. She’d had everything, and then she broke herself, and everyone preferred her broken.

Father said with absolute certainty, “You can. You must. You are the blood of the dragon.”

“Will you be with me? Will you—”

“Don’t be a child.” _Azula, silence yourself._ Even when she was four years old, that sentence echoed in her head.

_But it was my idea to burn everything to the ground. I deserve to be by your side!_

“You betrayed me, like the rest of them. All I wanted . . .”

She stood above the earth and rained down fire on every Earth Kingdom village, preparing the world for rebirth. Below, the people were only ants. Father was the phoenix, and she was the dragon.

A dragon created ashes; it didn’t rise from them. But she would’ve been glad to do it, to reduce everything to ash, to conquer. To show everyone they had been fools. 

Here she was, stripped of her titles, her crown stolen. Dishonored. All her work undone. It was Azula who conquered Ba Sing Se in a matter of days without shedding blood, and everyone—they would forget her. Gladly. Mai had said as much when Azula was trapped in the hospital.

_We never wanted to be around you. We feared what would happen if we didn’t. Now, I don’t think of you much at all, and I’d like to keep it that way._

Azula snarled and tasted blood. More than ever, she was struck with these murky fugues of anger she couldn’t release, revenge denied for now. Even Mother had happily forgotten her and had a replacement daughter. Those she knew would forge a world where it was as if she never existed.

And there it was, the anger, the hate. White as the core of the sun.

Father said beside her, “I tried to forge a new world without you by my side, and now you must try without me.”

“I don’t need to listen to you. If I ever saw you again . . .” He’d be better dead.

But he must’ve cared for her, she thought. Not that it mattered. He was the only one, until she lied to him about Zuko killing the Avatar. He had to . . .

“Good,” was all he said, and her parents were gone.

Azula walked until her legs cramped and the day grew hotter. Insects cried from the trees, and bloodflies tried to drink from her skin.

Her gaze flickered, and she swayed. Sweat poured down her temple. She was ashamed that she didn’t spit out the perspiration that ran to her mouth; she needed to keep as much water as she could inside her.

Part of her told her to go back, to retrace her steps. To lie down. Never before had she felt such an immense weight on her shoulders, a mantle of iron.

She couldn’t look back. Never again. She couldn’t abandon this path.

What felt like another week passed of malnourishment and unfit sleep. Many times, she was startled awake and shot to her feet, feeling a soft touch and thinking Mother had found her.

_I’m sorry I . . ._

She couldn’t look back.

Time was hard to tell when the spirit woods had a thick canopy, and time seemed to move differently here. Nevertheless, she trudged along, feeling filthy in the clothes she’d worn on the search.

It wasn’t until hours later, as the calluses on her soles began to bleed, that something changed. Beyond the leaves was a shock of paleness that didn’t leave, and she followed it until she entered a clearing, no, not a clearing.

She escaped, and found herself in a new place she didn’t recognize.

The skies above her were vast and gray, endless. A chill seeped into her bones. The trees were gone. It reminded her of stories, of scrolls she perused as a girl at the academy.

In her studies as a child, Azula read scrolls on geography and every culture in the world. Not only the primary nations, but the different clans across the world. There were the nothing people of the Great Divide, for one. 

And then to the northeast and east of the Earth Kingdom, several miles past Ba Sing Se, were cold and inhospitable steppes where the people tamed horses and roamed for food. 

Comprised of several clans that fought and struggled for power, they were never a cohesive threat. In the great fire, as Sozin’s Comet razed the sky, they were an afterthought, superfluous even in a necessary genocide.

They made their homes out of koala-sheepskin and folded them up in their carts when they needed to move on. Because the steppe-people, or the Khalkans, were not a united force but several different clans using the same land, there were many wars and raids, and life was hard and cruel.

Centuries ago, they tried to conquer the Earth Kingdom and failed, living again in obscurity. As they were mostly comprised of nonbending savages, their only benders tended to be what they consider shamans. Allegedly, they spoke myriad different languages other than the common tongue of the rest of the important nations.

That was what Azula thought of when she crossed the cold plains and watched the swaying grass, but it was impossible.

She’d been in some part of the Fire Nation, looking for her traitorous mother with a misfit band, though they would have her believe she was the one who didn’t fit. Though her mind had failed her in its perpetual exhaustion, she would’ve known if she’d crossed an entire ocean and cut through the Earth Kingdom.

This wasn’t right. Perhaps she’d died as she rested against the whorled bark. Despite her defiance, she gave the world what it wanted from her: oblivion.

These were the necessary rigors to ensure her sanity didn’t slip. Something flitted across her vision, and she looked down at the grass as something fell by her feet, and then another. 

Ash, pale ash. As if Father succeeded, and the remains of the Earth Kingdom were flying east. A portent of doom for the Khalkans.

No, it wasn’t ash.

It was snow.


	2. Lord of Nothing

Snow.

Azula reached out, and a flake fell on her palm, shriveling into a wisp of nothing. More came, spiraling all around her and sticking to the hard ground.

This was impossible, and though Azula rarely felt fear, she had the treacherous thought that, this time, she’d truly lost what she had left of her mind.

As she looked up, she inhaled the cold, and the scent of grass and soil. It wasn’t as earthy and damp as the forest. It had a sharpness to it, less kind, if she were foolish enough to attribute kindness to nature.

Azula walked under the gray, eerily still sky. Ill-prepared for cold weather, as much as she loathed it, her skin broke out in goosebumps, and though her inner fire raged strong, stronger than any other firebender’s, she considered that she might need to find shelter. 

Or else, she would eventually freeze to death. That was, naturally, unpreferable.

If she were still in a delirium, she might’ve laughed. Her own mother chose to forget her, and even in amnesia, Mother replaced her with a better, sweeter daughter. One born of adoration and consent, not spite and rape, as Azula had been. Zuko, too, but that didn’t matter; he hadn’t tried to kill Mother in labor, only the start of their long list of contentions.

This was perfect for Mother, wasn’t it? Azula would die in a place that was all but nowhere, and she’d do it as nothing.

_ I’m not nothing. I’ve never been nothing. _

Zuko. The water peasants. Her uncle, who failed a decisive siege that would’ve given their nation the Earth Kingdom, a mistake she corrected in far less time. They were nothing, but not Fire Lord Azula, the prodigy who was the culmination of the greatest dynasty in the world.

Fire Lord. She gazed out on the land. What should be hers, one the Fire Nation claimed everything. Like the rest of the world. She’d go from Fire Lord to Dragon King.

_ Nothing, _ the bitter wind whispered to her.  _ Lord of Nothing. _

As she walked, she saw the texts were true. The land was inhospitable and near-barren. No wood to burn, the grass too low and stunted by cold to do any of use. It wasn’t fit for an empire. In fact, she had trouble believing it was worthy of life, even the life of savages who rubbed twigs together.

Holding it off as long as she could, Azula bent over and retched a foamy glob of bile, a string of mucus falling from her lips. Her stomach cramped in hunger or sickness or both, and shame burned in her. When she righted herself, the pang didn’t abate, and when a sudden noise came from above, she looked up.

The flap of wings, a black shape. At first, she suspected it was a flock of buzzard vultures, circling a prize she’d never give them. Instead, no, it was smaller, but then as soon as it spiraled above her, it flew off. She had half a mind to strike it down. For its obstinance. For food.

Was she low enough to scavenge? Well, that’d been all she’d been doing as she lost a sense of time. As disgusted as she was, she directed her resentment toward Zuzu. If it weren’t for him, Mother, and the Avatar, she wouldn’t be in this scenario, going lower and lower.

Eventually, she came upon an incline, a series of rock formations that might’ve been imposing to the easily imposed. She surveyed every crevice until she found a small cave. She checked the exterior and found no signs of life, no stray fur or dropping to indicate anything was there. Her time in the spirit forest.

In her left palm, she produced a meager flame, only the tip of it flickering blue. Extending her arm, Azula observed the cave. It was shallow, little cover from outside, and the ground was rough stone, but it’d have to do for now. She didn’t like having her back exposed to the seemingly endless plain.

Swiftly, she ventured inside the cave and, uncharacteristically slumping down, curled her back against the stone wall. After sleeping with her back against a rock or tree numerous times, it was no royal bed, but she managed.

Unable to stave off the exhaustion any longer, she dozed in a black fog that tasted of ice. However, her respite didn’t last long until she snapped away and went stiff at the sound of voices.

Meticulous as she was, she took in her immediate surroundings. The world outside was dimmer, the dreary precursor to twilight. She saw a brown-feathered, black-eyed bird that looked like a slightly bigger messenger hawk. It flew off and was replaced by hurried footsteps. At least four people were approaching the cave with unknown motives.

And when the footsteps came close, and shadows crawled over the stone, Azula shot out a burst of blue fire in warning. Exclamations of shock, the scrape of metal, a weapon sliding against another.

A pause in motion. Azula watched the shadows, which fell over her.


	3. Blue Fire

As her eyes adjusted, Azula took in the figure who approached her. A woman, not far from her age. Seventeen, eighteen at most. Black hair, trailing down her shoulder in a braid. Her eyes were a dark brown, and to Azula’s disbelief, they shrewdly assessed her.

The woman’s skin was as wan as the tormented spirits in old stories Mother would read her. Or the actors who’d powdered their faces shockingly white because they were portraying ghosts.

She wore a red, furred robe, maybe composed of thick wool, with the left flap wrapped over the right, clasped in place from the crook of her arm to her neckline. Not much different than what the Water Tribe or some Earth Kingdom citizens wore. Though the sleeves were scuffed, it boasted ornate circular designs the same vibrance as the silver sash loosely fitted high over her waist, since her belly was swollen.

As the stranger came close, dangerously ignoring the warning, Azula caught a whiff of smoky incense. This wasn’t a dream or illusion.

“Are you hurt?” the stranger asked, voice soft and raspy, like the Ember Island waves. Azula tensed. The ocean could soothe, but it could also strangle.

Overly dramatic. She shouldn’t be an idiot. She had no need to fear this woman, of course; if a struggle ensued, Azula would be the undisputed victor. She was surprised, however, to understand the stranger.

“No, leave me be.” Her throat was dry.

Others gathered at the entrance, two women and a man. One of the other women looked to be about Azula’s age, too, with two thick black braids cascading down her shoulders, reaching her waist. Out of everyone, though her skin wasn’t incredibly dark, it looked like it’d been tanned in the sun during warmer months, about the color of some Fire Nation civilians.

Whereas the pregnant woman was a little gaunt with blue shadows under her eyes, this woman’s face was a little rounder and livelier, and her eyes, with hints of green, almost struck gold with the torch she carried. Perhaps she was of partial Earth Kingdom heritage. Her robe, however, was a simple tan. 

The third woman was older, her black hair going silver, her face long and narrow, and her robe of a similar vivid red as the pregnant woman advancing on Azula. And the man, in a leather and wool waistcoat, steadily held a curved saber at his hip. There was a long scar under his right eye.

“You’re dying,” the closest woman said, glancing over Azula. “You’re from the Fire Nation.” Azula wanted to condescend, to ask how she could possibly know that, but she supposed her clothes left little question. At once, they’d been a flagrant scarlet.

The northeastern clans apparently traded much, and therefore much information of the world was disseminated. Useful, if their living accommodations were more hospitable, and perhaps more than one clan united to form a stable state.

The stranger held a hand to her collarbone. “I am Khalun.” She turned to the others, the woman with two braids, and said something in her own language, low and quick. The other woman ran off, and Azula refused to budge. To her humiliation, she wasn’t sure she was able to stand.

Of course she could. She’d conquered an entire kingdon. She wouldn’t wallow and perish in the insignificant cave. She wouldn’t die here, especially not at the hands of insignificant peasants, if their meager statuses could even befit peasants.

Khalun had folded in her hands a blanket of fur Azula didn’t recognize, maybe like the wolves in the Water Tribe. Not a blanket, she realized, a silver-sable cloak. Azula only glowered, and Khalun, eyes lined, despite her youth, and shadowed with sleeplessness.

“Are you hungry?” asked Khalun, as if she weren’t standing before a firebender who could swallow her in flames with no effort.

Twisting in her lap, Azula’s wrist popped. Some effort. She said nothing, staring with venom at this stranger, daring to ask questions.

Like if she was hurt or hungry. It had to be a ruse.

Azula seized as the older woman released a flurry of angry-sounding words at Khalun. The man joined, and the other young woman did, too, though less irritated.

None of it was directed at Azula, but she assumed it was about her. Despite her highly personable efforts in the past, it seemed her presence wasn’t charming the locals.

Despite her pregnancy, which was well-advanced, Khalun was thin, but her voice carried its own as she spoke with the others. It seemed the girl with two braids was on Khalun’s side, her gestures open and gentle when she regarded her. She stepped close to Khalun, lightly touching her elbow.

The older woman and the man, on the other hand, were severe. Not enough to suggest spite, but enough for Azula to realize her presence introduced a rift between them.

Azula was humiliated. Here she was, hair tangled and dull and almost completely loose of its topknot. Sitting here, towered over by others.

_ What a shame, you always had such beautiful hair. _

The perfectionism said her state was humiliating, but she supposed it’d be enough to have her mother at least pretend to cry, so Azula could bask in the imaginary tears.

Abruptly, Azula stood tall, but not tall at all, since she realized Khalun was about a foot taller than her, and the others, all staring at her now, no less imposing in stature. Such were the pains of never reaching past exactly five feet.

The benefits Azula had in any given situation were her rhetorical skills, her pure talent, her extensive training, her blue flames, and, naturally, in the case of that one ship captain, the insecurity of men shorter than her. The latter could be dealt with by the rest.

Still, her lack of height was a problem. That meant to look at these strangers, these bony, unbathed steppe-people, she had to look up at those who’d always look down at her. When it should’ve been the opposite.

“Would you care to translate?” Azula asked Khalun, not kindly. She set her shoulders against the stone, daring any of them to approach. Khalun still had the cloak she attempted to offer.

Khalun gave a quick shake of her head, waving off the others. “Come on. Come with us. We’ll give you food, and in return, you can help warm us. A sun shaman is good luck, according to the Sky. Especially when snow falls.”

“A shaman,” Azula said. “Could I be such a thing?”

“Yes,” Khalun replied, as if it were an odd question to ask. “You already are.”

“No. How do I know you won’t try to hit my head with a rock? Or run me through with a spear?” She added with a sneer, “Or whatever your sort use.” There was no use for honeyed words with those they’d be lost on.

Appropriately, the reply was curt: “If you stay here, you will die.”

Khalun seemed to understand she couldn’t appeal to Azula’s goodwill, which was like fishing in a salt pan, so she appealed to survival. And she didn’t look the least bit threatened, which was, frankly, obnoxious.

Azula stared at the cloak in Khalun’s arms. Nothing indicated it’d do her harm, but accepting the garment felt like a concession.

No point in giving in, accepting the charity of a beggar  _ from _ a beggar. Better a death of dignity.

And that word reverberated again inside her head:  _ No. _

She wasn’t going to give up, and she most certainly wouldn’t die. Not with Zuko on the throne. Not with Mother and her illegitimate spawn alive. The rightful heir to the throne wouldn’t last be seen crying and running into the wilds.

Azula stared Khalun down from her hair to her furred boots. “Speak with me alone.”

Khalun hesitated, her only movement the jerk of her right arm. This entire time, they met each other’s eyes with intensity.

Looking behind her shoulder, Khalun said something to the other three. Short answers, protests, but Khalun shot them all a single look Azula couldn’t see, but with the way the profile of her jaw locked, it was enough to get the others to relent. 

As the older woman left, she cast a doubtful look at Khalun, with a hint of something that might’ve been maternal, in that caustic way mothers judged yet coddled their children.

The others waited until the older woman was out of the cave before they followed. The girl with two braids left at a slow pace, though she ensured she had physical distance from the man at all times. The man seemed to understand her need to be away from him because only when Two Braids had gone did he follow with the wide strides.

Defiantly, Azula met Khalun’s eyes again. Or rather, she remained jaded as Khalun looked at her.

The woman asked, “What must I do to convince you we won’t hurt you?” Azula overestimated this savage’s intelligence. Obviously, she wasn’t worried about being hurt. As if these nonbending steppe-wanderers could if they tried. “We have need of a sun shaman. A firebender, as you call it.”

At least she was being more honest, Azula thought wryly. Talking about how Azula could be a deal, rather than appealing to a feeling of concern.

“And why is that,” Azula replied, “to keep your huts warm?”

Khalun didn’t falter. “There’s that, but we revere those such as yourself.”

“I like the sound of that.” Lavishment would be nice. After all she’d been through, the indignity of the hospital and being led around by her brother and the Avatar’s obnoxious sidekicks, she deserved some worship as recompense.

“That is,” Khalun added, frown deepening, “if you don’t cause trouble.”

“Never,” Azula replied. “I’ve always been the picture of good behavior. Oh, by the way, know what a picture is, don’t you?”

Guarded, Khalun said, “Your fire is blue.” 

“Yes, I noticed.” Azula pursed her lips.

“Why?” Why not?

Truthfully, Azula couldn’t say for sure. “It’s not typical. In fact, I’m the only firebender who has ever had blue fire. it’s hotter than others.”

Khalun’s brow creased. “I see. Does it ever hurt?”

Azula narrowed her eyes. “Does  _ what _ ever hurt?”

“To have such an intense flame inside you.”

“No.” She’d struggled to control her lightning at first during the Agni Kai, but she’d quickly forced herself to maintain absolute control. One assured step before the cliff crumbled into the abyss.

Khalun clasped her arms to her chest, shoulders straight. “Can your fire do anything else? Some of the sun shamans can diagnose injuries with their fire and detect evil spirits. They can look inside someone’s body and see what’s happening.”

What nonsense was that? Azula was a firebending prodigy, not a water peasant playing nurse in her crude hut. “No.”

Khalun let out a breath through her nose. “A shame.”

Azula mirrored Khalun and crossed her arms. “So awfully sorry to disappoint you.” With that, the stranger pivoted, swifter than Azula anticipated, and started to leave, though she halted.

“If you don’t want to come, I won’t force you, but it’d weigh on my conscience if I left you out here.” Interesting that she had a concept of a conscience.

Azula narrowed her eyes. “What’s in this for me?”

Khalun looked over her shoulder. “You’ll help us survive the winter, make it easier than the last, and we’ll ensure you don’t starve or freeze to death in a cave.”

Azula assessed Khalun’s shielded expression. Despite Khalun’s rigid posture, there were no signs of deception.

And as the woman went to leave, Azula had to make her choice.


End file.
